Desktops forum: is my wife's computer just getting old??

she has an old sony vaio rb39, celeron 2.8ghz, xp home/sp3/. it has served her faithfully for 10 yrs...great computer.

but it started to slow down, like programs taking forever to open, like to the point where we thought it froze(it didn't it would just take several minutes to open) so i thought there was a virus. i did a recovery.

computer works much better, BUT STILL at startup we have to let it sit for 10 > 15 minutes before doing ANYTHING, and when she does anything that involves double clicking, she has to do it with nice medium pacing. if she does any double clicking too fast, or opening things too fast, or anything that puts the computer to task, it results in a VERY slow response. other than that you wouldn't know that anything was wrong.

any opinions as to why her computer is this slow? does she need a new hd? memory going bad? OR MAYBE JUST TOO DAMNED OLD??

for retirement. I'd not put a dime into it or a minute of time at this point unless you aren't able to afford to replace it or have grown sentimentally attached to it. All I needed was to see the age to advise that. Hope it helps in your decision.

I agree with Steven, its time to move on. Add this factor that on Apr/2014 XP-SP3 will no longer be supported by MS excluding some future factor. Plus, anything newer PC now and at a sale/bargain in the upcoming sale season from Thanksgiving till Xmas will be a good time to buy. If for the lack of anything else, if you're experiencing slow-down now it will only get worse as time continues. As i stated any PC brought now will be leaps better than a 10yr. PC use the repair costs for a new PC.

Can point to many causes. The thing is that you have to go over every area with a fine tooth comb. One time it will be some software add on, then next you'll find a HDD that is going out. And then you love it when you find some USB HDD plugged in and you unplug it and boot time drops in half.

What I'm writing here is that there are too many causes to list here. Your seasoned troubleshooter would never write what it is but can upset folk that demand to know what causes it. The answer is many things.

XP will continue to be used for some time with everyone knowing it's not going to get patched anymore. It's like driving a 55' Chevy. Just try to take that to the dealer.Bob

I agree with Bob, it could be so many things - eventually they all wear out. Unless you really really like the machine, looking at a replacement in the pre-festive season sales looks to be a good approach. If you do that, then Windows 7 is likely an easier transition than 8, unless you also follow Bob's advice previously and install ClassicShell on 8.

That said, we have an IBM T23 Notebook, 1.13 Ghz Pentium 3 Mobile, 1 GB RAM, 40 GB HDD, XP SP3 Pro and it still runs like a bandit compared to your description. As a hobby, we still keep it logically and physically "clean" - hey, I even considered putting Win7 on it! But realistically, if anything breaks it's dead - have you tried to buy PC133 RAM or a 2.5" PATA HDD lately? They don't exist here in Australia!

Long and short of it, if you like tinkering, tinker away but realistically, it might be time to replace it for serious work and with the Haswell processors coming on stream. now (well, after Black Friday) should be a great time to pick up an Ivy Bridge Core i5 or i7 Machine!

Could be a few things. Mainly everything is getting tired, worn down. You can "refresh" the drive by reformatting it & (but it's wearing out too) installing everything once more, but that's not going to help with the mouse functions. If it's a separate mouse, just change it out.Files build up & paths get crossed, it's just how it is. A fresh install is always a good choice, if you aren't sure if buying a new one is. Or you can buy a new drive & either transfer the files, or reinstall everything on to it. This way you can pay attention to what is being installed, that you actually want on the computer.

As a rule, you should have half of your drive empty for speed. It takes longer to look through a full drive. If your wife uses the on board mouse system, you may be able to have it cleaned & renewed, or just go with an external mouse.

Good luck on your plans. Windows 7 & 8 look nothing like XP, & setting up directories & folders isn't as it used to be, either. That is she may not like the new look.

And the funny thing is, this is a Celeron that wasn't all that hot to begin with. I mean, when you got this machine, XP was the new kid on the block.

You might get it to work a little faster by cleaning up the hard drive with CCleaner, running something like Spybot on it and letting it remove all the adware and spyware, changing out whatever antivirus you are using for something really lightweight like Panda Cloud, and defragmenting the hard drive. You might even try reflashing the BIOS and running sfc /scannow to correct any corruption in the O/S.

But you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. I'd say offhand that it's time for a new machine. Sometimes Costco has these "Easter Eggs," deals on really high-end laptops, that probably won't slow down much for a VERY long time. I got my wife's Core i7, 12 GB RAM, 17" display, backlit keyboard, Blu-ray, and all the bells-and-whistles laptop there for only a little over $700. And that was a couple years ago -- they've gotten cheaper.

The old girl has served you well and it is time to reward its faithful service with retirement.

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